OSLO: The 32-year-old man accused of Norway's worst massacre since World War II now says that two cells of extremists collaborated with him, a court here said Monday, ordering him to be held in complete isolation to prevent him from interfering in police investigations into potential accomplices. The defendant had previously said he had acted alone.
The defendant, Anders Behring Breivik, appeared at a closed arraignment hearing here as Norwegians paused in grief and self-examination for a minute's silence to mark the deaths of at least 93 people in last Friday's attacks.
While acknowledging that he carried out the attacks, Breivik "has not pleaded guilty," JudgeKim Heger told a televised news conference, in remarks translated by an official of the court.
The judge said Breivik had been charged under criminal law with "acts of terrorism," including an attempt to "disturb or destroy the functions of society, such as the government" and to spread "serious fear" among the population.
Breivik was ordered to be held for the next eight weeks, the first four in solitary confinement. He told police what there were "two further cells in our organization," reporters were told.
Breivik is the only person accused so far in the twin attacks last Friday when a huge bomb in central Oslo killed seven people and was followed soon afterwards by a shooting rampage against a camp run by the ruling Labor Party on the nearby island of Utoya.
In testimony, Heger said, Breivik had said he "believes that he needed to carry out these acts to save Norway" and western Europe from "cultural Marxism and Muslim domination."
The court appearance was Breivik's first since he was captured last Friday. Through his lawyer, he had indicated that he wanted to use the hearing as a platform and had wished to appear wearing some kind of uniform. But the court rejected those requests. The judge said Breivik had wished to "give a sharp signal" and inflict "the worst possible loss" on the Labor Party, accusing it of failing to prevent a "mass importing of Muslims" into Norway.
Shortly before Breivik's arrival, the court said in a statement, "Based on information in the case, the court finds that today's detention hearing should be held behind closed doors."
"It is clear that there is concrete information that a public hearing with the suspect present could quickly lead to an extraordinary and very difficult situation in terms of the investigation and security," the court said.
Minutes earlier, as noon approached, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg stood before crowds of people and urged them "to remember the victims. I hereby declare one minute's silence across our country."
All that could be heard in some places was the cry of gulls as trams stopped, cars pulled over and Norwegians bowed their heads, standing to attention with their hands clasped in prayer. Even after the formal 60 seconds, many seemed reluctant to move on, locked in private thoughts.
Rescue workers in red suits and fluorescent jackets stood in silence on a lakeshore near Utoya island outside Oslo where at least 86 of the dead perished on Friday in a rampage of gunfire that lasted at least 90 minutes. Earlier the same day, a huge bomb explosion had rocked government offices in central Oslo, killing seven people.
Breivik admits to the shootings and the bombing, his lawyer, Geir Lippestad, has told Norwegian news media, but he rejects "criminal responsibility." Lippestad said that Breivik insists that he acted alone, and alone wrote a mammoth manifesto - rambling from a hostile historical look at Islam to recipes (and price lists) for bomb manufacture to his family's pressure on him to date.
"He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary," the lawyer said. "He wanted a change in society and, from his perspective, he needed to force through a revolution. He wished to attack society and the structure of society."
The minute's silence in central Oslo and elsewhere came after a morning when people gathered quietly, some in tears, to contemplate the spreading blanket of bouquets in front of the Oslo Cathedral.
In the same place on Sunday, the royal family and average citizens alike, some traveling long distances, came to a memorial service for the dead in the cathedral. Long lines of people of all ages and colors waited patiently and quietly, some of them crying, to lay flowers or light candles. Someone propped up a radio on a post so those waiting could listen to the service inside.
Unexpectedly on Monday, the hunt for evidence also spread to southern France, where, The Associated Press reported, French gendarmes searched the house of his father, Jens Breivik, who was said earlier to have lost contact with his son many years ago. It was not clear what the officers were looking for or what they had found.
The Norwegian police and security services meanwhile faced numerous questions about their slow response to the reports of shooting on Utoya, where the country's governing Labor Party was holding its annual political summer camp, considered Norway's nursery school for future leaders. The police took an hour to arrive on the island after the first reports, and officials said that it was hard to find boats and that their helicopters were only capable of surveillance, not of shooting down the killer.
Some speculated that Breivik had wanted an open court proceeding on Monday in order to further publicize his anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim ideas, which center around the conservation of cultural and Christian values in the face of what he sees as a continuing effort by Islam to conquer Europe since the Ottomans were stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683. His manifesto, called "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence," seemed intended to reflect the 400th anniversary of the siege.
Breivik was said by analysts to have been an occasional commenter on a blog, Gates of Vienna, which is topped by these words: "At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe. We are in a new phase of a very old war."
According to the police, when he surrendered, Breivik was carrying an automatic rifle and a pistol and he still retained "a considerable amount of ammunition." Doctors have said that he was apparently using dumdum bullets, expanding rounds designed to inflict the deadliest wounds possible victims.
With no death penalty and the longest prison term possible in Norway set at 21 years, some Norwegians wondered how best to punish Breivik.
Hedda Felin, a political scientist and human resources manager, said that giving Breivik an open platform "was more of a reward than a punishment." He said in his manifesto that he considered killing Norway's top journalists at their yearly meeting, she said, for not listening to him and his arguments.
"He wants an open trial to be listened to, so journalists will now write about his ideas," Ms. Felin said. "A real punishment would be not to write about him at all."
There were church services all over Norway on Sunday. At the Oslo Cathedral, King Harald V andQueen Sonja of Norway, who joined Monday's minute of silence, were both in tears on Sunday, and they were hardly alone. Prime Minister Stoltenberg, who knew many of the dead, said, "We are crying with you, we feel for you." The brief period since the killings "feels like an eternity - hours and days and nights filled with shock and angst and weeping," he said.
"Each and every one of those who has left us is a tragedy," Stoltenberg added. "Together, it is a national tragedy."
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